A New Perspective
by Dala1
Summary: (L/R) Late-night TV gets interesting (rating for sexual situations)


  
Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue. Repeat chorus until fade.  
Author's Note: I just don't know where this one came from. And I don't understand my fascination with dual points of view. Takes place a few years after the movie, companion to "A Different Perspective."  
  
  
  
Our Friday night ritual was born of not wanting a social life.  
  
I mean, she could have easily gone to a club downtown, electric lights cavorting over her covered skin, and danced till the sun rose. And I could have gone to a nameless bar, picked up women with heavy breasts and lonely eyes. But we never did. It was practically the only time I watched TV, creeping downstairs when everyone else was sleeping, sitting cross-legged on the couch and watching infomercials for twenty-minute abs. One night she just showed up beside me--sat down on the couch and watched the screen in silence until the mansion began to stir with early risers. No one else ever disturbed us, although I caught Chuck giving me funny looks after the first few nights.   
  
Tonight she's more restless than usual, flicking through the channels with a vicious air. I know why. Gambit walked off in a huff when she refused to go out with him earlier, and left the house with a pretty blond girl on his arm. I watched it from the kitchen, still not understanding the games they play with each other. They both deserve better.  
  
And me, too, I'm not feeling so good. Jean and Scott have finally set the date. I smiled and congratulated them and promised to attend the April wedding, but I expect to be somewhere upstate by then. It hurts less with time, but doesn't go away. I guess it never really will.  
  
She stops on some show in Spanish, with a smiling big-haired woman and a man wearing a bad hairpiece.  
  
"I am not watching this crap," I say.  
  
Shrugging, she changes the channel and lands on a nature program. It has something to do with poisonous snakes, and I would tolerate it, but she continues flipping through the channels at a fast clip, barely pausing long enough to see what's on.  
  
"Stop that." I look over at her, in long-sleeved pajamas with her hair pulled back. In the light shed from the TV, her face takes on a greenish cast.   
  
"There's nothing good on." She continues flipping methodically. It's driving me fucking insane. By the time she's gone through all the channels four times, I've had enough.  
  
"Gimme the remote." I stretch out a hand.   
  
"No."  
  
"Marie!"   
  
Suddenly a very prankish grin lights up her face, and the bitch waves the remote above her head. "Come and get it."  
  
I growl and leap at her, but she holds the damned thing just out of my reach. So I attack her ribs, tickling her for all I'm, worth, and still she won't give in.   
  
"Give!"  
  
"Never!"  
  
We're both laughing by now, breathless, and all at once I stop trying to get the remote, and she stops struggling. I find myself in a rather awkward position, stretched atop her, with her knees drawn up on either side of my hips. *Very* awkward.  
  
Her face is just below mine, and she's still breathing a little quickly. I deftly pluck the remote from her unresisting hand and place it on the coffee table.  
  
"I win," I breath, examining the color of her eyes. There's a catty expression in them that is kind of intriguing.  
  
"You cheated," she whispers, low and husky. If I closed my eyes and listened to her voice, I would think her so much older. A blind man, hearing Marie speak, would laugh if she told him her real age. Barely twenty, and touched by so much of life.  
  
But not what she really wants.   
  
"You know," I say, trying my level best to be casual even though that impressive chest of hers is heaving up and down distractingly, "there's one thing I don't get about you and Gumbo."  
  
She snorts. "Just one?"  
  
I transfer one arm from holding her shoulders, to rest it gently on her waist. She doesn't move an inch. "With me and Jean, there's old Scotty-boy in the way. But for you two, it's not like that--there's nothing in between."  
  
"My skin," she replies, that ancient pain making her voice sharp.  
  
I shake my head slowly, still gazing into her eyes. "That's not as big a barrier as you like to think. If the boy had a creative bone in his body, he'd know that."  
  
She quirks a brow at my choice of words. "Oh?"  
  
"Yeah," I say, gently moving my thumb on the flannel of her pants, along her hipbone. "I can think of plenty of ways to get around it."  
  
"Really." She shifts slightly under me, encouraging my own 'creative bone', and I bite my lip, suddenly apprehensive. What am I thinking? This is little Marie, even if her nails are digging into my shoulder blades through the cotton of my t-shirt.  
  
But she's still looking at me with those big green eyes, a soft need shining from them.   
  
"Yeah," I say again, beginning to move slowly against her, drawing a gasp. Her hips lift convulsively. "See what I . . . mean?" Not as cool as I pretend to be. This little escapade is certainly getting to me, and how.  
  
"Mmm," she replies, her eyes closed, her lips parted. Dammit, they're entirely too warm and soft-looking--do I have a death wish or something? I guess so, because I move one hand down between her thighs, the other behind her back, supporting her. Burying my neck in her shoulder, protected by her shirt, I press her down into the cushions. Christ, I haven't been with a woman in so long--I don't know why I'm doing this now, with her of all people. I even try to stop, briefly, but she pulls me back down and wraps her too-strong legs around me, and how am I suppoesd to resist that? We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I reflect . . . or the right place, if you choose to look at it that way. I can't make up my mind. Either this is really going to fuck our friendship up, which is the most likely scenario, or maybe . . . just maybe, it'll give it a new perspective.  
  
At the moment, though, philosophizing is not the thing foremost on my mind. Right now I'm concentrating on her voice calling my name, throaty and driving me to thrust harder. I'm wondering why this is better than anything I've ever felt, despite the fact that I'm not actually inside her and there's several layers of clothing between us. I'm praying that I won't lose my head and kiss her, which would end things real quick. They're ended pretty quick, anyway--she comes sooner than I expected, which is good because I'm not exactly brimming with control. When I follow a few seconds later, I suck in deep breaths and try to ignore how tightly she's holding onto me. I look up at her, fully prepared to apologize and say that this is all wrong, but she's gazing at me like I've just made the world stop turning and she can't quite figure out why, and the words die in my throat.  
  
And then I do something which I regret, because it probably makes her feel like shit, and it certainly does so to me. But I've never been in quite so strange a situation before, and I'm trying to find the route that will save the most face. So I get up and return to my room without a word.  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
I take a short shower, with the water so hot it's painful. What the fuck just happened down there? For one thing, she's young and too good for a worn old bastard like me. For another, the Cajun has pretty much staked a claim on her. But I think of how he so rarely touches her, even with the layers she swathes herself in, and I don't feel as guilty as I should.  
  
When I get out of the shower she's there, perched on my bed with her arms crossed. Luckily she doesn't look pissed, even though I deserve it. She just looks kind of . . . thoughtful, and I know that she's got a lot more courage than me, coming here to try and talk after what we did. I pull on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt, a little smugly aware that she's watching every movement, and sit down beside her.  
  
She turns her head to look at me, hair swinging free because she's let it out of its tie. The white streak practically glows in the dark. "What did we do tonight, Logan?"  
  
It's a valid question, me being the supposed lady-killer and her the delicate virgin. And I don't have an answer.  
  
"I don't know," I say honestly. I crawl under the covers and hold out an hand. "But can I tell you in the morning?"  
  
She pauses, and finally smiles, and scoots over to curl up in my arms.  
  
To tell the truth, I'm still thinking it over. But at least now there's someone here to listen to my thoughts.  
  
  
  
(note: this was really supposed to be up two weeks ago, but I've only just now gotten my account unfrozen :)  



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